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And the Battery Gunny was pissed already this morning…. (URR here.) Having, nearly thirty years ago, had TWO in-bores in my battalion, one on an 8-inch M110A2 and one on a 155mm M109A3, I can tell you they can be impressive. This certainly appears to be one of the (possibly Israeli) Soltam-modified M114S 155mm…
And the Battery Gunny was pissed already this morning…. (URR here.)
Having, nearly thirty years ago, had TWO in-bores in my battalion, one on an 8-inch M110A2 and one on a 155mm M109A3, I can tell you they can be impressive. This certainly appears to be one of the (possibly Israeli) Soltam-modified M114S 155mm towed howitzers, with the 33-caliber tube and brake replacing the distinctive silver 23-caliber tube on the original design.
H/T 5/10 Alumni.
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Years ago I read an Arty story in Soldier of Fortune. The crew had a muzzle blast and it shredded the canvas cover of the truck behind them, but not one of the crew was touched. I think it was a 105 that went off. I seem to recall it was old WW2 vintage ammo too. IIRC, the story was early ‘nam era.
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An in-bore is when the projectile detonates while still in the tube. With our two back in 1987, one (the 8-inch) was a hairline fracture of some very old (read WWII) ammunition which caused the fuze to set back during firing, detonating the subcharge and beginning the explosive train for the projo. Other ammo of the same lot, when inspected by the ammo techs in daylight, had similar hairline cracks around the fuze well. The other, on the M109, was suspected to be a subcharge that had somehow either been compressed by mating with a long-intrusion fuze in the dark, or the subcharge had gotten into the tube and when the projo was fired, it detonated, exploding the round. Both were HE rounds, I seem to recall. 8-inch was HE M106 and the 155 was HE M107.
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In-Bore: Projectile explodes before it leaves the bore.
There’s a myriad of reasons (bore constriction, bore obstruction), but at the end of the day the shell’s fuze is the guilty party. Firing really old ammo means that fuze has been knocked around the depot for 20-30 years and Bob knows what that’s done to it. For old ammo with base fuzes (mainly Naval arty AFAIK), the sealing of the base fuze fails and lets the hot propellant gases up through the base of the shell and ka-boom (c.f. USS Newport News, CA-148, 1 OCT 1972).
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I was not aware of what happened to cause the accident on Newport News. A friend at my church was assigned to that turret when they were on the gun line in ‘nam and had just been reassigned. The guy that took his place was killed.
Is that what happened on Iowa as well? I never heard the result of the investigation.
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The USS Iowa disaster, as far as anyone has publicly said (or tested by Sandia Labs), was an overram (newbie on the rammer) of aged powder exposed to excessive temps while in storage. Tests to prove the powder safe proved otherwise. Unfortunately, the Navy brass in charge were so hot to get the Iowa back in service that they needed to concoct the Hartwig/Truitt failed gay relationship theory to hide the shortcomings in equipping, manning, and maintaining the turrets while in a hurry to deploy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_turret_explosion
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Quartermaster: Gotta revise my comment re CA-148. It was a bad nose fuze, improperly built and improperly inspected when delivered to the Navy.
http://www.uss-newport-news.com/hist/TII_Exp_Inv/TII_Exp_Invstn_Smry_Lttr.htm
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XBradTC 
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